[MUSIC] Hello, I'm joined by Dr. Dan Plesh, Director of the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy. Dan what do you understand diplomacy to be? >> I understand diplomacy mainly to be the interaction between states, between governments. Usually using professional diplomats in the foreign ministries of their countries but increasingly direct contact between all sorts of government officials. And then in addition to that, there are interactions by people in organizations who aren't directly connected to governments, perhaps most notably corporations. >> Thank you. In terms of your experience, what do you consider successful diplomacy to look like? >> Well that is a huge and open-ended question. I suppose to take one example, it would be that no serious political action arose around the legality of the Iraq war. The number of states considered bringing that forward in these national system and elsewhere, and the diplomatic pressure of the United States meant that this never appeared substantively for example i on the agenda of the Untied Nations. I think one could also look at the creation of institutions. The UN itself, NATO, the European Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Council. All of these are global institutions created by diplomacy. So that's perhaps two ends of a huge spectrum if you're looking at particular issues in recent years. The Iran deal with United Nations on it's nuclear program was an archetypal naughty difficult problem, that was at least so far eventually resolved in contradiction to a large amount of received wisdom on both sides. >> And conversely, what do you consider this failure of diplomacy to look like? How do we know when diplomacy has failed? >> Well sometimes war is a diplomatic objective. The famous A. Hitler, I think would've seen war as a triumph of state power, but all too often war and conflict, diplomatic economic conflict arises out of the failure of diplomacy. I think one might see the message given by the American ambassador, April Glassby to Saddam Hussein. Before Saddam Hussein decided to annex Kuwait is an archetypal failure of diplomacy in that I think she thought she was giving a limited message about hassles over a few oil pipelines and thought he was getting a green light to occupy the country. That perhaps is a very good example of recent decades. >> And in terms of- >> So clarity of message, I think making sure that the other party actually understands what it is that you're saying is very often critical. >> And in terms of your experience, who can you identify as being particularly skilled diplomats? Who do you admire in that respect? >> Well at one level, I think there's a number of us Africans and see leaders. Before the end of apartheid and afterwards, I think have to count as some of the worlds greatest successes in bringing it out, the road and rise to power, and a peaceful resolution to the situations in Africa. So I think there's a number of African diplomats I can think of. Perhaps unfashionably I would also talk to George Bush Sr. around the end of the Cold War, perhaps very conservative and not rising to the occasion as perhaps Roosevelt and Truman had done. But nevertheless managing the end of that conflict and managing summit diplomacy. I think famously, Bush Sr. arranged a summit with Gorbachev. They only had one meeting, and they wanted to arrange another one. And archetypely, in terms of summit diplomacy, he arranged the second one only using Gorbachev's translator. Because at that point things were so sensitive he didn't trust any other American citizen to be party to that knowledge. >> Thank you, in terms of the skill set that a good diplomat has, what would you see as the key characteristics of those? >> Patience, the ability to work extremely hard at all hours without losing ones cool. Negotiations either formal or informal quite often run into the small hours of the morning day after day week after week. An ability to empathize with one's partners and particularly one's opponents and ability to communicate to one's national government. Sometimes messages that they don't want to hear or I think perhaps is one of the most important ones that very often, particularly nowadays there is a mindset that this isn't necessarily want to hear an alternative view. Those would be some things I would put up quite highly I think. >> Just a follow-up on one of the points you made earlier. Is there something that's particular, do you think about the diplomacy of international organizations such as the UN? >> Well the theories would say it's about building norms and culture and those institutions take on a life of their own by virtue of the people in them. And I think it's also the case that in a world of international bodies, that is you may meet one official today, or you may meet one official in your 20s, and then you find you that you're across the table from them in your 30s. And you carry on meeting people in that culture. And I think that strengthens bonds in a way in which it's hard to imagine. Let's say a world with the lack of institutions such as we saw in 1900 when there wasn't that sort of institutional culture. >> Thank you very much, Ed. >> Thank you, Simon. [MUSIC]